Linkwad.

1. Via Matt Yglesias, research shows that sitting a lot is bad for you, regardless of whether or not you exercise. Another reason to try a standing desk.
2. The history of the Oregon Trail games.
3. Dave Weigel notes that since Obama’s inauguration, “the percentage of Americans saying blacks have achieved equality has risen from 35 to 42 percent. It has remained static among blacks, and spiked nine points among whites.” Although he says he’s not sure how to interpret it, the answer seems pretty obvious to me: white folks, seeing a black man in the white house, think everything’s hunky-dory, while black people see a 4.9% higher unemployment rate (PDF, page 6), and significantly lower pay (page 39).
4. How social networks decide what information to give to law enforcement.
5. Larry Page will take over as CEO of Google.

Maybe it’s on Yelp.

Like everyone else, I’m pretty fascinated with the NYT‘s Mapping America project–although it doesn’t say anything new, per se, it does make Baltimore’s de facto racial segregation prettier:

If you’re not familiar with the project, green dots are white people, blue are black, yellow are Hispanic, and red are Asians. More dots means a higher population density.

I am part of a fightin’ 4% of Asian folk in my census district. That super-high-density blue square in the upper-left-hand corner threw me for a second, until I realized what it was:

Incidentally, how has no one reviewed the place’s food, accommodations, or activities?

Racy.

As an Asian guy with an extremely long torso and short legs, I thought this was interesting:

Anthropometric measurements of large populations show that systematic differences exist among blacks, whites and Asians. The published evidence is massive: blacks have longer limbs than whites, and because blacks have longer legs and smaller circumferences (e.g. calves and arms), their center of mass is higher than that in other individuals of the same height. Asians and whites have longer torsos, therefore their centers of mass are lower.

I’m generally suspicious of “inherent genetic advantage” arguments, but at least I know I’m not alone.

I like math, too. And blockquotes.

538 explains why Southern Republicans are playing Jim Crow 2.0 with Hispanics:

[I]n the Deep South, …conservatives are stampeding to express solidarity with the Arizona governor and legislature, and, in one case, to revive the English-Only chesnut. Why is that?
…
[E]ven as Hispanics have become a regular (and to some, a disturbing) feature of Deep South life, they have not yet become a voting bloc significant enough to matter in all but scattered local elections. For a variety of reasons, including legal status, age, recent arrival and mobility, the percentage of southern Hispanics eligible to vote is very low. In fact, in the states of the Old Confederacy (excluding Florida and Texas), there were only two states as of 2006 in which Hispanics represented as much as 2% of eligible voters: Virginia at 2.8%, and Georgia at 2.3%. The Hispanic percentage of the population in these states in 2006 was, respectively, 6.8% and 7.4%.

So whereas in states with larger and more established Hispanic populations politicians considering anti-immigrant messages have to think seriously about blowback, there are no real negative consequences in the Deep South to offset the incentives for such rhetoric.

Writing on a slightly different topic, TNC sums it up:

I think there’s a strong demographic case that consistently going to the well of white resentment, indeed defining yourself as the party of white resentment, is, as a long-term strategy, politically stupid. We’ll know a lot more as this decade proceeds.

In the meantime, I think it’s worth saying that I don’t count on diversity and multiculturalism because I think it’s kind, nice or because it makes me feel all cuddly inside. I count on it because I think that’s where this world is headed. I think banking on the world remaining as it was in 1968 or even 1998, isn’t very smart.

I don’t say this because I like rainbow huggy-time. I say this because I like math.

Blogging sure is easy when other people say everything you meant to.